Let's Help More Than 100 Children with Cancer

Report (September, October and November of 2016)

As you already know, Childhood Cancer Fund Rugute provides support to families raising children who have been diagnosed with oncological diseases. The support, among many other things, includes financial assistance, purchasing medications and medical care supplies that are necessary to the children. During the months of September, October and November, 2016, the Fund provided monthly and non-recurring charity of 7,000.00 Eur to the families who used this money to purchase necessary medical care and food supplies and to cover other costs that they could not have avoided due to their child’s disease, such as travelling costs, etc. The money also helped the families to improve the psychological well-being of the children.

The Fund helped to purchase specific medications that are needed by individual childhood cancer patients but are not State-covered or not supplied in Lithuania at all. In order to ensure that the proper treatment is administered to the little patients, the Fund bought:

• Temodal 100 mg for Vladimir C. (cost: 503.16 Eur).
•  Avastin for Kiril V. (cost: 4,782.64 Eur).
• Temozolomide Teva 100 mg (43 packages) and Temozolomide Teva 20 mg (9 packages) for Vilte P. and Agne V. (total cost: 4,516.67 Eur).

Our Fund continues to take care of emotional and psychological well-being of the little patients during treatment. Therefore we purchased 3 items of long-term central venous catheters. These catheters ease the procedure of administering drugs to little children, allowing them to avoid pain. The total cost of the catheters was 947,43 Eur.

The Fund also purchased special mouthwash solutions AftaClear and Anaftin for 375.72 Eur. These solutions help the little patients to get over the most common side effect of chemotherapy – mouth ulcerations that are known to worsen both physical and psychological condition of the sick child. Thanks to these solutions, children are able to eat without suffering too much pain.

As we have mentioned many times before, it is not only physical treatment that matters, but also emotional and psychological health of the child. When a child is playing, he/she is able to forget the pain he/she has experienced during treatment and medical procedures. Therefore we used some of our donations to renew the Game Room of Oncohaematology Center of Vilnius Children's Hospital, by purchasing toys and games for 1,834,65 Eur. We did this upon request of physicians and the psychologist who works with the little cancer patients.

Fund Rugute has been making children’s wishes come true. Two adolescent cancer patients, Sofija and Ignas, wished for personal e-readers. Both teenagers are now in isolation at Bone Marrow Transplantation Unit, going through autologous bone marrow transplantations. The electronic readers are much more hygienic and safer to use than regular books, because they are easier to disinfect and it lessens the risk of infections. The e-readers cost 256.08 Eur. Also, Ignas, who loves not only reading, but also taking pictures and creating videos, has been dreaming of a brand new camera. Having found out about this boy's wish, we bought a Canon G3X camera for him (total cost: 886.92 Eur).

The Fund reacted to the physician's request to finance immunotherapy for seventeen-year-old Liveta, who has been fighting with one of the most malignant diseases for more than a year now. Although immunotherapy is widely administered in modern world, this treatment method is still very new in Lithuania. Aiming to enable this kind of treatment for Liveta, the Fund allocated 6.050,00 Eur for it.

For the past three months, Rugute was also able to continue covering the maintenance costs of Rugute’s Home, the only facility in Lithuania that provides temporary accommodation to the young cancer patients and their family members, free of charge. Having found shelter in these premises, children with oncological diseases were able to have a break from their treatment and from being in the hospital. Rugute’s Home allowed their family members to get a temporary accommodation while visiting their children in the hospital. The total maintenance cost of Rugute's Home in September, October and November was 4.668,41 Eur.

We aim to help the children who have already reached remission, fully recover from the disease and the treatment. It is obvious that in order for their bodies and souls to get better, it is crucial to provide them with both active and passive recreation, new experiences, joyful adventures and new friends. Positive emotions free their minds; encourage them to enjoy every single day and to discover the world around them.

We were very happy to receive an invitation from Jurga and Fredrik Gotlund, who offered us to implement a project Rehabilitation and Recreation of Childhood Cancer Patients together, by bringing our children to Mallorca, Spain, for a week of vacation. During 2 years, 30 children who had been diagnosed with oncological diseases in the past, and their family members (in total – 71 person), had a recreational rehabilitation in Can Fanals property on the warm Mediterranean island of Mallorca.

10 more children and their family members went to Mallorca this fall. Children enjoyed extreme water sports – jumped off the cliffs, rode on the rubber tire tied to a speedboat, had fun at a local water amusement park. Children also visited Palma Aquarium, Campanet caves and the narrow streets of Palma and Alcudia oldtowns. The total cost of this trip was 11.219,86 Eur.

On the 29th of November, Fund Rugute celebrated its 12^th anniversary and, together with Nacionalinis kraujo centras, invited everybody to the voluntary blood drive Share a Droplet that takes place in Rugute’s Home twice a year. Share a Droplet is a wonderful and positive blood donation campaign, where one can give some sincere attention to a sick human being and to save his/her life in an easy and rewarding way.

We would like to give a loud and sincere THANK YOU to all of our loyal and loving donors on GlobalGiving. Children are getting better and happier because of you. They suffer less pain and experience more positive things than they would experience without your help.

Report (June, July and August of 2016)

Childhood Cancer Fund Rugute continues to provide various kinds of support to families with children that have been diagnosed with oncological diseases. We have been providing financial assistance, purchasing medications and medical care supplies for these families. During the months of June, July and August, 2016, the Fund provided monthly and non-recurring charity of 4,300.00 Eur to the parents, who used this money to purchase necessary medical care supplies and to cover other costs that they could not have avoided due to their child’s disease. The money also helped the families to improve the psychological well-being of the children.

The Fund also continuously purchases specific medications that are needed for individual childhood cancer patients. Some of these medications are not State-covered, and some are not supplied in Lithuania at all. This time, the Fund helped to purchase medication for little Dovydas C. His medications were not under State coverage, but were very important for his treatment. The total cost of medications for one month was 177,50 Eur.

The Fund also purchased 500 items of infusion systems that are necessary to administer medications, physiological fluids and glucose solutions intravenously. We allocated 735,68 Eur to purchase these systems.

Taking care of emotional and psychological well-being of the little patients, the Fund purchased special needles (240 items) for central venous catheters. These catheters are known to ease the procedure of administering drugs to little children, allowing them to avoid pain and tears. The total cost of the needles was 958,32 Eur.

The Fund also purchased 210 bottles of special mouthwash solution AftaClear for 1, 876.95 Eur. This solution will help children to get over the most common side effect of chemotherapy – mouth ulcerations that are known to worsen both physical and psychological condition of the young cancer patients. With this solution, children will be able to eat and will suffer less pain.

Due to the long-term and agressive treatmet, children in remission are often bothered by various health issues, other than the oncological disease. Ugne T., after her anti-cancer treatment, faced serious dental and oral health problems. The Fund paid 1,280.00 Eur to cover the costs of her dental appointments.

For the past three months, Rugute was also able to continue covering the maintenance costs of Rugute’s Home, the only facility in Lithuania that provides temporary accommodation to the young cancer patients and their family members, free of charge. This facility offers two bedrooms, a kitchen, two bathrooms, a cozy playground and an area for meetings. Having found shelter in these premises, children with oncological diseases were able to have a break from their treatment and from being in the hospital. Rugute’s Home allowed their family members to get a temporary accommodation while visiting their children in the hospital. In July 2016, the Fund bought new bedding sets, replacing all of the old bedding, for both bedrooms for 509,65 Eur. The total maintenance cost of June, July and August of 2016, was 4,407.23 Eur.

From the 18th to the 21st of August, the Onco-Olimpiada 2016 for children took place in Warsaw, Poland. The Polish organization Fundacja Spenionych Marzen (Fund of Dreams Coming True) invited the young cancer-surviving athletes from Lithuania to take part in the games for the 4th time. This time Fund Rugute delegated 13 participants to go to Poland and to compete in swimming, track and field, archery and some other events, against participants from Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine and Poland. Children and their parents traveled to Warsaw by a comfortable private bus. The aim of this international event is to provide our societies with a better understanding of the issues the families with children who have oncological diseases face every day, and to bring young athletes from different countries together. Our children brought home 19 Olympic medals (9 gold, 4 silver and 6 bronze) and many good memories! Participating in these games does not only provide opportunity to children to test themselves in various sport events, but also to experience lots of good emotions and to make new friends! Cancer patient Emilija shares her experience: I loved taking part in the games and supporting my team. I met new friends. It was fun to compete with other children and to win medals. I had a great supporting team, lots of good mood and lots of smiles. Our team was the most friendly and the most colorful one!

The Fund spent 4,522.08 Eur to participate in the games (38 persons were taken from Lithuania to Poland and back).

Dear Donors of GlobalGiving, thank you for helping us move forward and to make our children’s lives easier. We highly value your contribution and support, and hope to be able to do many good deeds in the near future!